Sunshine Smoothie Bar

I have long thought that the corner of Bacon and West Point Loma Boulevard in Ocean Beach is a weird place to put restaurants, but the intersection there has been home to a surprising variety of eat- and drinkeries for a while. All four corners of the intersection have a restaurant of some sort, and the Northeast corner is home to Sunshine Smoothie Bar (619-222-2503).

Sunshine is a random little store and therein lies its charm. It has a lot of crunchy, hippie sensibilities but it's also not a pure health food store by any means. While it has a "super green" smoothie that's loaded with kale, chard, spinach, parsley, and other such earthy veggies, Sunshine also has smoothies that are just fruit and Red Bull thrown into a blender; how's that for a kick in the morning?

I tried a "citrus twist" smoothie. It had pineapple, raspberries, mango, passionfruit, and mango juice, but citrus was conspicuously absent. Be that as it may, the smoothie was very good because mango creates a really cool, light, frothy texture in the blender. I also had a shot of wheat grass for $2.50, which always makes me feel like some variety of chlorophyll-powered superhero.

Weirdly, the seemingly health-conscious shop stocks a huge variety of packaged fruit snacks, processed pastries, and candies that contrast with the wheatgrass in a major way. I did try an unfamiliar, packaged raisin Danish that tasted as if it would still be moist and tender for a few years after the Apocalypse. I shouldn't eat such things, but sometimes I cannot help myself.

In addition to the smoothies, Sunshine also sells espresso and Acai bowls, which are a pretty solid breakfast dish when all is said and done. The combination of fruit puree with, usually, coconut, fresh fruit, and a little granola is frosty, filling, and nutritionally superior to pancakes or sausage biscuits by a huge factor. The smoothie bar has the notable advantage of being open at 6AM every day, so breakfast at Sunshine is a real possibility. The place stays open until at least 5PM every day, although the staff makes an effort to keep the doors open until 6 on the weekend for stragglers to have one last chance at a smoothie.

Contrary to much of OB, parking is ample at Sunshine, despite the fact that they share a lot with the OB Water Store, and that fact alone is enough to catapult Sunshine into favorable status for drinks, snacks, and smoothies, and coffee. Maybe not as a destination, but certainly as something to keep in one's back pocket for when opportunity strikes.